World Social Forum

6 June 2005

TNI

World Social Forum

The World Social Forum (WSF) developed out of the anti-capitalist movements in the late 1990s. It was created to provide an open platform to discuss strategies of resistance to the model for globalisation formulated at the World Economic Forum at Davos (Switzerland) at which neo-liberal intellectuals and political leaders meet to discuss and supposedly solve the problems of the age. The first WSF was held in 2001 in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, a city of 1.5 million people. Both the city and the state are governed by the Workers' Party of Brazilian president Lula. There are 30,000 participants. The forums in 2002 and 2003, also held in Porto Alegre, saw the movement grow rapidly, as the WSF came to symbolise the strength of the anti-globalisation movement and became a rallying point for worldwide protest against the American invasion of Iraq. More than 100,000 people attend the fourth WSF in Mumbai (India), a city with a population of more than 30 million people governed by the extreme nationalist right. The next WSF is planned for Porto Alegre in 2005; the sixth forum is planned for Africa.

Recent publications from Public Services & Democracy

Privatising Europe This working paper and infographic provide an overview of a great ‘fire sale’ of public services and national assets across Europe that is providing profits for a few transnational companies but is often fiercely opposed by its citizens.	Participatory alternatives to privatisation Experience worldwide shows that EC-imposed privatisation on crisis countries will not work. The alternative is not reinforcing the status quo, but using citizen power and labour to reinvigorate public services and democratically transform the state.
The future of Public Enterprises in Latin America and the World An international seminar in Montevideo, co-organised by TNI and the Uruguayan government, shared the latest learning and innovation by state-owned enterprises across Latin America and affirmed their importance as instruments for economic and social development.	Something rotten in the ANC state The palaces of President Zuma and the massacre of miners at Marikana symbolise how the gulf between rich and poor has grown in the 18 years since the African National Congress came to power in South Africa. Hilary Wainwright reports on how formerly loyal ANC activists are turning against their government